Twitter says account wishing death and rape on Peter Moore's family isn't breaking rules [update]

Electronic Arts chief operating officer Peter Moore took to Twitter last night to call out the social media site's system for banning abusive accounts after receiving threats against his family through the service.

"I get lots of these, but the threats to my wife and family spurred me to report this to Twitter," he wrote in one Tweet that included an image of Twitter's reply saying the account in question hadn't broken any of Twitter's rules.

We've reached out to Twitter for comment on the decision and will update this story when they respond.

Tweets from user @xbox_gamer87 included a flurry of vile threats and comments directed at Moore and his family, all seemingly spurred by the user's anger at EA's FIFA games:

• "Hope your wife gets raped by Muslims. You've ruined FIFA your a disgrace."
• "Hope ur wife dies in a ditch a ditch u scum. Hurry up and die u old prick."
• "Hope your wife gets raped."
• "u scum I hate you and everything related to u ... I hope u ur wife kids family all die then there's nothing left of u."

Moore noted that the user, who has been banned in the past, created a new account with the same real name.

"Here's the nonsense of twitter bans," he said in the tweet.

Last week, Twitter announced that it was making it easier for people to report harassers.

"Everything that happens in the world, happens on Twitter — to the tune of more than 500 million Tweets every day," Shreyas Doshi, the services director of product management and user safety, wrote in the service's blog. "That can sometimes include content that violates our rules around harassment and abuse and we want to make it easier to report such content. So, we're improving the reporting process to make it much more mobile-friendly, require less initial information, and, overall, make it simpler to flag Tweets and accounts for review."

Hours after the spree of hateful tweets, user @xbox_gamer87, who's Twitter bio is "@petermooreEA the one person I want to see die," defended his actions, saying they were protected free speech.

"reported for HOPING... or for WISHING lol ether one , it's a freedom of speech :) run along now m8:)," he said to another user who reported him to Twitter for the verbal attack on Moore.

The issue of online threats is becoming a national conversation. Just last week the U.S Supreme Court heard arguments in a case surrounding a man imprisoned for making death threats against his estranged wife via Facebook.

The outcome of that case could have far reaching implications.

Update: The account has now been suspended. Twitter has not yet responded to request for comment.